Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Weekly report

It was Monday the13th of February 2006 when we attend the presentation by Mr Smith. Data on labour turnover statistics of both permanent and temporary employees were presented. The average turn over of employees were calculated annually. He emphasised that turn over of employees in include all racial groups. He told us that people should go out from CSIR to help the nation outside with the skills acquired in CSIR

The Statistics course was attended on Tuesday and Wednesday. The presenters were Renee’ Koen and Alta de Waal. The course was based on how to prepare, analyse and interpret the statistics data. I learned that the statistics reasoning can help me to understand what I want and how to measure it, analyse data using average, median, standard deviation, and variance and to present data on tables and graphs. We did these from Microsoft Excel.

Furthermore, I learned that there are null and alternative hypothesis. The null hypotheses that is true can be rejected and accept the null hypothesis which is false. These types of mistakes called Type I and Type II errors. Both exercises and discussion have been done during the learning process. The presenters were patient and friendly to us. It was nice experience.

The Creativity and Innovation Course was attended on Thursday and Friday in building 42. The little paper bags with sweets were distribution to the group. We were instructed to take a sweet with letters. We used the letters from the sweet to introduce ourselves. Idea cards were distributed to write our expectations about the course. We were instructed to write one expectation and pass a card to our neighbours. Then the neighbour wrote the second expectation and the process continues until instructed to submit cards. Things wrote on the cards include able to create new ideas, innovation, self confidence, participate effectively and use creativity to help others. This course was presented by Jeremy and Chrisna du Plessis .

Different activities were made using creativity for instance to design a new flip charts and to make a parliamentary chair using the structure of a peacock. I learned that creativity has to do with generating information and innovation implement new ideas to create value and make them real. Mind map should be used to plan things properly. Principles of creativity are based on no critics. Assess someone’s ideas properly rather than criticizing them. Hitching ideas has to do with group worked. The left brain differ from right brain. The left brains work with right hand and left hand work with right brains. The course was properly organised.